Archive for April, 2009

It continues to amaze me how loosely most people deal with statistics, making up or inflating numbers to prove a point or make something seem more significant than it really is.

Exhibit A is an article on CNN today, about a really sad case where a boy shot himself with a gun that his parents had stored in a closet. Why it wasn’t locked up, and why it was loaded, I can’t say. But here’s the statistic in the article:

The CDC says three children per day, on average, died in accidental incidents in the United States from 2000 to 2005, the last year data are available.

The CDC has some really great data resources available, so I went to WISQARS and ran the report. Here’s what I selected, based on how the CNN article described the set:

Intent: Unintentional (that is, accidental) deaths

Mode: Firearm

Years: 2000 to 2005

Ages: Custom range from <1 to 17 (this should be what “children” means, yes?)

No age adjusting

The result returned was a total of 724 deaths for the six year period. Too many, yes, but three children per day? Hardly. More like one child every three days. The CNN number is inflated 9 times higher than the actual. That’s past lies and damned lies, that’s statistcal malpractice. (I sent a comment to CNN to see if they’ll correct it, but I don’t have high hopes.)

Different Worlds

NB: Life and technology are often very different worlds. Don't
get overwhelmed by the tech posts (on the one hand) or annoyed by my politics (on the other). Choose
the category you're interested in and ignore the rest. You have my permission.

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